Austin added dexterity to submissiveness.

My companion, whose name I now found to be Medlicote, was prone to converse, and commented on the state of the city like one whose reading had been extensive and experience large.

He combated an opinion which I had casually formed respecting the origin of this epidemic, and imputed it, not to infected substances imported from the East or West, but to a morbid constitution of the atmosphere, owing wholly or in part to filthy streets, airless habitations, and squalid persons.
As I talked with this man, the sense of danger was obliterated, I felt confidence revive in my heart, and energy revisit my stomach.

Though far from my wonted health, my sensation grew less comfortless, and I found myself to stand in no need of repose.
Breakfast being finished, my friend pleaded his daily engagements as reasons for leaving me.

He counselled me to strive for some repose, but I was conscious of incapacity to sleep.